Photos: Beyonce's national anthem and 13 more famous lip-synced performances

Juanita Ng, Vancouver Sun02.05.2013

More and more, lip syncing is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Beyonce has just admitted that she lip synced at the U.S. presidential inauguration. Keep clicking through our gallery to see 10 other famous lip-synced performances.

(In this photo, Beyoncé sings the national anthem during a news conference Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, in New Orleans.)File photo
/ Associated Press

Beyonce: 2013 presidential inauguration, Star Spangled Banner
The last notes of the U.S. national anthem had barely faded away before questions arose about whether Beyonce had sung live or lip synced. A spokesman for the Marine Corps Band that provided the accompaniment started the controversy by stating that Beyonce had used a pre-recorded track. Then the spokesman was forced to backtrack frantically: “No one in the Marine Band is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded.” Beyonce, who will also perform at this year's Super Bowl halftime show, has since told reporters that she lip synced the anthem.Getty Images
/ Canada.com

Jennifer Hudson: 2009 Super Bowl national anthem
The stories about Jennifer Hudson's rendition of the U.S. nation anthem at the 2009 Super Bowl all sound very much like the copy generated by Beyonce-gate: “Did Jennifer Hudson lip sync the national anthem?” the stories ask. The answer: Yes, she did, at the request of pregame show producer Rickey Minor, who has produced numerous Super Bowl performances. “I would never recommend any artist go live because the slightest glitch would devastate the performance,” Minor told the Associated Press after Hudson’s performance.'
/ '

Faith Hill: 2009 Super Bowl, America the Beautiful
Faith Hill, who sang America the Beautiful before Jennifer Hudson's anthem, also lip synced at the request of pregame show producer Rickey Minor. “That’s the right way to do it,” he told the Associated Press afterwards.Getty Images
/ Getty Images

Whitney Houston: 1991 Super Bowl national anthem
Whitney Houston’s soaring, exuberant rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl is considered by many to be one of the best ever. The late singer even considered that performance to be the highlight of her career. But it turns out that performance was likely lip synced. “The music was pre-recorded, and so was the vocal,” Rickey Minor, Houston’s musical director at the time, confirmed last February. He said Houston sang, but it was the prerecorded version that was played. Just days ago, however, Houston’s mother Cissy Houston shot down any suggestions of lip syncing. “Everybody lip syncs. [Whitney] didn’t want to do it because she can’t lip sync,” she told omg! Insider. “She said, ‘I want to sing it,’ and she sang it.”'
/ '

Ashlee Simpson: Saturday Night Live, 2004
Ashlee Simpson's debacle on Saturday Night Live in 2004 possibly set the benchmark for lip-sync humiliation. Simpson had just sung Pieces of Me for the SNL audience but when she came back for her second number, Autobiography, she was no doubt horrified to hear the first song - with her vocals - playing all over again before she'd even raised the microphone to her lips. Simpson, who reacted to the mistake by doing an awkward hopping dance before walking off the stage, later said it was her band's fault for playing the wrong song. Her manager-father than added that Simpson needed help because she’d had acid reflux that had made her voice hoarse.'
/ franklin.thefuntimesguide.com

Milli Vanilli
No one took their-lip syncing duplicity farther than Milli Vanilli, whose string of pop hits earned them a Best New Artist Grammy in 1990. The sham fell apart rapidly after a live performance by the duo in Connecticut, during which their song Girl You Know It’s True jammed and then began skipping repeatedly. The ruse ended with the duo’s Grammy win being rescinded and a host of lawsuits being filed by furious fans who’d bought their albums and attended their concerts.'
/ 123people.at

Lin Miaoke, 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony
Many people felt unsettled and even outraged when it was revealed that the cute little girl who “sang” Ode to the Motherland during the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony was lip syncing. The reason: The seven-year-old girl named Yang Peiyi who actually won an audition to sing the song was not deemed pretty enough to perform in the opening ceremony so the cuter Lin Miaoke, 9, was chosen to mouth the words. Chen Qigang, the show's musical designer, explained it thusly: “I think it is fair to both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi - after all, we have a perfect voice, a perfect image, and a perfect show, in our team's view, all together.”File photo
/ PNG

Luciano Pavarotti, 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony
Luciano Pavarotti’s stirring performance of Nessun Dorma at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy drew an enthusiastic and prolonged ovation from the crowd, but it was revealed two years later to have been lip synced. Event director Leone Magiera wrote in his 2008 memoirs that the performance had in fact been prerecorded weeks earlier because of the effect the sub-zero temperatures would have had on Pavarotti’s vocal cords. ”The orchestra pretended to play for the audience, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing. The effect was wonderful,” Magiera wrote.'
/ '

Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean moonwalk, 1983
Michael Jackson’s lip syncing of Billie Jean during the 1983 TV special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever doesn’t seem to have bothered too many people; viewers were too dazzled by Jackson’s debut of his moonwalk. “That Jackson lip synced Billie Jean is, in itself, not extraordinary, but the fact that it did not change the impact of the performance is extraordinary,” says Ian Inglis, author of Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time. “Whether the performance was live or lip-synced made no difference to the audience.”'
/ '

Madonna
Madonna has long been suspected of at least partially lip syncing during her concerts; in particular, she took a lot of criticism during her 2004 Re-Invention tour for over-lip syncing. At the Q Awards in 2004, even Elton John couldn’t resist taking a dig. “Madonna, best f-- live act? F**k off. Since when has lip syncing been live? Anyone who lip syncs in public onstage when you pay (about $170 per ticket) to see them should be shot.” Madonna’s publicist immediately denied any lip syncing: “Madonna does not lip sync, nor does she spend her time trashing other artists. She sang every note of her Re-Invention tour live and is not ashamed that she was paid well for her hard work.” However, as recently as at her September show in Vancouver, Madonna’s voice could be heard on some songs when she clearly was not moving her lips.Gerry Kahrmann
/ PNG

Kanye West, Saturday Night Live, 2008
Ashlee Simpson is not the only singer to have been caught out on Saturday Night Live - Kanye West’s less-than-stellar performance of Love Lockdown in 2008 had many critics speculating that he had failed to get the technological boost he needs to perform. West’s performance was decidedly feeble, leading a critic from Billboard to theorize that the Auto-Tune pitch corrector many artists use while performing live had malfunctioned for West.Getty Images
/ Getty Images

Chris Brown, 2012 Billboard Awards
Rapper Chris Brown very obviously lip synced Turn Up the Music at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards, and was subjected to criticism on Twitter before he’d even finished his performance.
“What happened to people singing live???” boy band member Joe Jonas tweeted.
Added singer Pink: “One day if i lip-sync, i hope i do it as well as him.”
Brown blasted back, on Twitter also, naturally: “Don’t hold ya breath waiting for me to stop doing me!” and then “anyone who is upset obviously is upset with their lives.”Katy Winn
/ AP

50 Cent, 2007 BET Awards
50 Cent was set to “sing” Amusement Park at the 2007 BET Awards when to his dismay, an instrumental version of the song began to play. Fiddy, no improviser he, never figured out how to sing along to the music even though the tune surely must have been familiar to him. To his credit, 50 Cent did manage to work in a plug for his sponsor at the end: “Vitamin Water, ladies and gentlemen,” he stated.'
/ blog.pennlive.com

Britney Spears, take your pick
Britney Spears has always been known for her famously weak vocals, so stories abound about her various lip-syncing nightmares. For example, one Reuters story claimed that at a New York stop on her concert tour, Spears only used her real voice three times: twice to thank the crowd, and once to sing a ballad. Then in 2008, her performance of Womanizer on the U.K.’s X Factor television program was scrutinized and panned after she stumbled singing the song, unable to match her lips to the vocals. However, that was nothing compared to the furor she faced in Perth, Australia in 2009 when fans furious about Spears’ blatant lip syncing stormed out of the concert venue after just a few songs.'
/ themusicradar.com

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Photos: Beyonce's national anthem and 13 more famous lip-synced performances

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